Post and Courier

With high-speed internet access hard to find in South Carolina’s rural and high-poverty areas, some public libraries are trying something new: letting patrons check out free wireless hotspots that can connect to the internet just about anywhere. Public libraries are letting patrons check out personal Wi-Fi devices.

South Carolina is expanding access to telemedicine — or, put broadly, health care done via the internet. This virtual way of seeing a doctor or managing health is seen as a solution to deteriorating health care services in rural parts of the state. SC’s government has spent $68 million in one-time commitments since 2013 on telemedicine. But it’s no secret that progress is stunted if people don’t have internet access. Some 537,000 people in South Carolina don’t have an adequate internet connection at home — about 11 percent of the state’s population, and 26 percent of the rural population.

Commissioner Mignon Clyburn of the Federal Communications Commission said she had been thinking about leaving for some time. By the end of 2018, term limit rules would have forced her out anyway. But the final decision, announced during a commission hearing, was spontaneous. "I was not 100 percent sure when I woke up this morning that this was the day," she said. "But I think it's the right time for me and it's a good time to have a reset to allow someone else to come in and pass that baton."